While everyone chased after the red gems and fought against Jia Shan their teammates, only Zhang Yide saddled Miaomiao and grabbed Miaomiao’s wrist.

“Give me the knife!”

Miaomiao’s frowned as he disliked being mounted. He pulled Zhang Yide’s hair and dragged him closer to his head.

The good old MMA technique partially weakened Zhang Yide’s strength as the latter lost his balance and stumbled. He couldn’t utilize his strength to attack or pry the knife from Miaomiao’s hand properly.

Miaomiao repositioned his legs while one of his hands continued to pull Zhang Yide’s head, not allowing the latter to raise his posture.

Unfortunately, this move would have been ideal if it was a one-on-one fight without Qi. They were not suitable for a group fight.

The others also reached Miaomiao. Qiang Sui soccer-kicked Miaomiao to the temple while Liu Xuande stomped his barefoot to the nose.

Had it been a normal circumstance, Miaomiao would have suffered a concussion or passed out on the spot. However, as Miaomiao’s physique and bloodline strengthened his body, none of the attacks harmed him.

Every hit only frustrated him since it made him dizzy.

“Let go of the knife, sissy boy!!”

Noticing the treasure knife, Qiang Sui and Liu Xuande also tried to steal the only weapon.

Seeing that the others ganged on him, Miaomiao released Zhang Yide’s hair and stuck his thumb into the latter’s left eye.

He mercilessly pressed the thumb into the eye socket! Zhang Yide’s left eye was gauged out!

“BASTARD!!”

Had Zhang Yide been a powerless commoner, he would have screamed in pain and despair as he had just lost an eye. However, Zhang Yide didn’t care if he would lose an eye or an arm. He could always regrow them back since his soul physique was flexible.

In retaliation, Zhang Yide raised his posture and stopped trying to steal Miaomiao’s knife. He rained punches to Miaomiao’s face.

Miaomiao endured the hits from Zhang Yide, Liu Xuande, and Qiang Sui. He waited for the right opportunity.

Soon, Liu Xuande missed his kick and landed his right foot close to Miaomiao’s head.

Miaomiao stabbed Liu Xuande’s right foot with the knife right away!

“AHH!!”

Liu Xuande screamed in pain, which distracted Zhang Yide and Qiang Sui for a split second.

That split second was what Miaomiao was waiting for. He pulled out the knife and plunged it into Zhang Yide’s rib, after which he sliced it like he wanted to open the latter’s chest.

There was no blood or liquid in the body of the 8th-stage cultivator. Only Soul Qi leaked from the broken container.

With the large and deep wound, Zhang Yide faltered. Miaomiao moved his legs and escaped from the mounted position.

Qiang Sui failed to react on time. Miaomiao got up and encircled him.

He thrust the knife into the back of Qiang Sui’s skull!

Unfortunately for Qiang Sui, he didn’t have an undying body or a soul physique. The physical body of a nascent soul cultivator still relied on their flesh and blood. As such, a wound to the brain was still fatal.

Getting stabbed into the brain was enough to finish off this gold element user!

Another star fell.

Seeing that the fight here was in his favor, Miaomiao stopped worrying about his defense. He charged at Liu Xuande, planning to claim another kill.

Liu Xuande also sensed the incoming threat. He shrieked like a panicking woman and ran away from Miaomiao.

Zhang Yide also ignored the injuries and intercepted Miaomiao.

Under the pressure, Zhang Yide finally acted like a proper soul physique cultivator. He took a deep breath and pushed a palm against Miaomiao’s chest.

PU

It did nothing to Miaomiao other than hindering him from advancing forward.

Miaomiao was confused why Zhang Yide attacked him with such a weak palm strike. He ignored it and stabbed the guy by the neck.

Zhang Yide ignored Miaomiao’s attack and sneered. He grabbed Miaomiao’s knife with the free hand, stopping the latter from pulling it out.

As for the other hand, which had been pushing Miaomiao, he closed the palm into a fist.

Then, he revealed his secret card.

Berserker Dao, Zero Inch Punch!

It was the famous Bruce Lee’s Zero-Inch Punch from the modern world, but Zhang Yide could use it as well. In his version, it contained momentum, power, and his Dao, the Dao of Berserker.

…

The 6th-stage in this world was titled “Core Pillar Realm” instead of “Golden Core Realm” for a reason.

Golden Core was a core to any cultivator. It was a gathering point of Qi and Essence, which enhanced a cultivator’s reflex, brain, physical prowess, and Qi-related abilities.

But that was it. Everything was for a physical body. It became obsolete in the later realms as the majority of immortal cultivated Dao, Elemental Essence, and profound energy instead of their flesh and blood.

In short, Golden Core was there as a foundation for the nascent soul realm, and these nascent soul cultivators lacked a lot when they tried to advance to the higher stages.

Creating and solidifying the golden core was easy. However, forming a solid foundation for ascension was difficult.

The Swan Goddess and many immortals grew impatient as they couldn’t find a worthy mortal to serve them. Thus, they decided to impart a new cultivation method to improve the overall strength of this public world, hoping that many mortals could ascend and become useful to them in the future.

Therefore, they revised the cultivation method, starting from the Foundation Establishment Realm.

This improved method allowed the capable mortals to come up with a Dao and cultivate elemental Qi early, preparing them for the ascension and strengthening their nascent soul and dantian soul.

After cultivators created their elemental continents when they were at the 5th-stage, they needed to form their Dao to break through to the 6th-stage. Then, these “Daos” would become the “Pillars” for their “Golden Core”, which would become the foundation for the nascent soul stage advancement later on.

The “Dao” could be anything, such as beliefs, principles, dreams, fantasies, life goals, martial arts, or ways of life. As creative as humans were, they could come up with anything to be represented as their character, principle, or beliefs.

When someone’s firm belief, determination, and Qi reached a certain threshold, they could merge them together to create a Dao. Then, their Dao Avatar would be born in the process.

This Dao Avatar could be used in battles, but they still required Qi as fuel because they could only be manifested with enough Qi and Essence energy.

This new method also enabled a unique application. Mortals, who couldn’t form a Dao could swear allegiance to a Dao God to use their power – They could borrow “Dao” from immortals and deities to be used as their Core Pillars and grow stronger faster!

Jia Shan was one of the borrowers, who used the Sword Dao of Kunwu to grow stronger. When he was crippled, he also relied on the borrowed Dao to display his power with minimum Qi usage.

As for the Dao Owner, who had come up with their Dao, these talented cultivators could exert their Dao Power as long as they were related to the situation, such as combat, alchemy, or literature.

And Zhang Yide was one of those talented mortals that came up with his Dao. He was also a Dao Vessel of the Zhang Clan’s deity.

In the desperate situation, Zhang Yide decided to utilize his “Dao” like how Jia Shan did.

…

Even though Zhang Yide couldn’t utilize his Qi and his soul, he was still cable of activating his dao and utilizing his martial arts, which he had been cultivating since when he was a 6th-stage cultivator.

The will of the dao enhanced Zhang Yide’s momentum, and the destructive force was unleashed!

Unfortunately, Zhang Yide’s Soul Qi and nascent soul were sealed. Otherwise, many of his domain powers would have been available, and he could have killed Miaomiao right here.

Miaomiao widened his eyes in disbelief. He finally realized that he had underestimated Zhang Fei’s counterpart!

BOOM

The chest of Miaomiao caved in, and he was sent flying a hundred meters. He tumbled and rolled on the floor.

Fortunately, he managed to organize his body before he fell off the platform. Now, he stood on the edge of the stage.

Zhang Yide scoffed and pulled the knife from his neck.

“You’ve played enough. Now, my turn!”

“Tsk!”

The table was turned! Miaomiao sensed the looming danger!

He had no other way to kill Zhang Yide!

BEEP!!

The sharp whistle noise resounded in the space and distracted everybody. Only then, all contestants realized that 10 seconds had passed.

The mysterious voice returned.

‘A new pair of hunter and prey has been selected. The new hunter is Liu Xuande, and the prey is Brocell!’

A red gem appeared on Brocell’s forehead. Then, a new knife fell on Liu Xuande’s hands.

The luck of this villain was still too strong.

“Hahaha! I have the knife!”

Liu Xuande took the knife and turned around. He scanned everyone on the platform to find his prey.

Then, he realized that Zhang Yide had stolen Miaomiao’s knife.

“Yide! Ignore that brat and kill that black-clothed guy! We can share the red gem if we work together!”

Zhang Yide paused. He turned around to look at his elder brother for a moment. Then, he glanced at Miaomiao.

“Consider yourself lucky. I’ll kill you next time.”

Miaomiao frowned as that line was strangely cliché. Logically, he should have declined Liu Xuande’s order and pushed on the attack to kill Miaomiao.

Zhang Yide and Liu Xuande’s decisions were oddly stupid. It felt weird.

A second later, Miaomiao widened his eyes and looked at his chest. The injury just now had been healed, but he looked at something else inside him.

‘Was that the power of my new plot armor? Did it make those idiots stupider?’

…

Meanwhile, Xiahou Dun and others gathered at the north area of the platform, observing the chaos from afar.

They were the only ones who stayed away from conflicts and fights. Since they already lost a member when they had first arrived, everybody avoided the red tiles like plague.

Xiahou Dun counted the number of participants. Including Brocell’s golems, 111 contestants remained.

When the qualifier round had started, there were over 200 contestants, and the majority of them were Brocell’s golems.

Brocell also bragged that he had brought more than 500 of them, but they were destroyed when he immaturely challenged the platform before the game had even started. As a result, he ruined his manpower.

Taoties, aka Ling Tianlong’s pets, were also wiped out during the early of the game, and the credits went to Xiahou Dun and his gang – They were the ones who slaughtered them as soon as the first game started.

And now, they only needed to kill 12 more to end this qualifier round.

“Yuan, let’s jump into the fray. We have the advantage of the size and weight. We can’t miss this opportunity”

All cyclops were in their true forms as five-meter tall giants. They didn’t have their weapon, but their physiques were superior to the senile human cultivators.

“Who should we target next? Those wolves were too easy.”

“Get the easy targets, the human cultivators without Qi. Of course, we will go for Liu Biao and Liu Xuande’s men. Don’t touch our allies.”

“Of course!”

Xiahou Yuan nodded. He turned to his men and gestured them to move.

Instead of going after Liu Xuande and Zhang Yide, they beelined toward the back of Guan Yunchang, Huang Hansheng, Yan Liang, and Wen Chou’s team formation.

They flanked the battalion of Miaomiao’s enemies.

…

At first, Huang Hansheng and others attempted to steal the head of Ling Tianlong. But once they began fighting with Miaomiao’s men, they became engrossed in defeating their opponents.

Jia Shan, Ma Ping, Mao Xueyan, and Mao Dandan teamed up against Yang Liang. Zhao Bao soloed against Wen Chou. Dian Wei and Huang Hansheng duked it out to vent their anger.

As for Guan Yunchang, he faced several cultivators from Miaomiao’s side at once.

Qu Yi, Zhang Liao, Fogan, Pang Lingming, and Ma Shoucheng surrounded this red-faced man. They panted as they couldn’t keep up with Guan Yunchang’s martial skills and his undying physique.

The gap between the 8th-stage and 7th-stage began to show as Guan Yunchang took no damage from these men’s Dao Power and physical attacks. On the contrary, every punch and kick from Guan Yunchang broke their bones.

The gang was at a disadvantage against this War God’s counterpart.

“Don’t get cocky!”

Zhao Yun, Ma Xingjuan, and Kang Yan stepped up to assist Zhang Liao’s team. They sent their punches to Guan Yu’s face at once.

Guan Yunchang stood there and took the hit. Then, he harrumphed.

BOOM

The unyielding will of Guan Yunchang resonated with his War God Dao, the dao that he pursued when he formed his Dao Pillars when he was a 6th-stage cultivator.

The invisible shockwave knocked the girls flying backward.

Guan Yunchang kicked the ground and sent a straight punch to Fogan’s face.

Fogan sensed the danger as the oncoming punch contained a powerful force behind it. He raised his arms to block it.

BOOM

The thick arms of Fogan were broken from the blow.

“Bastard!”

Fogan roared even though he was in pain. He tried to activate his Orc Lord Dao and Bloodlust Dao to empower his physique like everybody else.

Jia Shan, Ma Ping, Yan Liang, and many cultivators bellowed and activated their Dao to enhance their physique.

Currently, the experts already discovered the loophole of this game. Although they couldn’t use their Qi, their nascent soul, or elemental power, they could still activate the dormant power of their dao pillars to enhance their physical strength.

And for those who could borrow Dao Power from their Dao Gods, they began revealing their cards.